Mother’s Day’s creator wished she’d never come up with the idea

The founder of Mother’s day never imagined that it would turn into the heavily commercialized day that it has become.

Anna Jarvis  strongly rebuffed the day’s commercialization and even tried to get the holiday pulled from the calendar.

The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialization and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar.

Mother’s day has been successfully turned into a Christmas for Mom. According to a National Retail Federation report, people will spend over twenty billion dollars on dear old mom this year.

Consumers plan to spend $4.2 billion on jewelry, $4.1 billion on special outings such as dinner or brunch and $2.4 billion on flowers. Total spending is expected to reach $21.4 billion.

According to NRF’s survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, consumers are expected to spend an average $172.22 per person, on par with last year.

Jewelry and brunch/dinner outings lead the way for consumer spending on mom with all the usual suspects rounding out the top 10.

So while Anna may have some heartburn over its commercialization – there’s no putting that toothpaste back in the tube.. nope.